Book Review: Average Joe

I was excited to receive (provided to me by Multnomah Waterbrook Press for review) the newly released book entitled Average Joe which also includes a great study guide in the back of the book. This book is geared for men but would entertain all types of readers with a deep hunger of wanting to do great things for God.

This book helped me understand the importance of simply serving God in the work place one currently finds himself in. The first section of this book focuses on the author's drastic turn in careers, which was not by his own choice. However, the reader will soon see the guiding hand of God when the author begins to serve the Lord freely in the place God has put him.

Section two of the book focuses on the different men of the author's life who were ordinary men that God chose to use in a big way. This book ends with section three which focuses on different events in the author's life helping him to see God's purpose in the author's normalsy in his career.

This is a quick and good read for the average Christian man looking to serve God right where God has placed him. I give this book a 4 out of 5 star rating. I deducted a star because of the fading focus on motivating the reader to change his current mindset into more of a servitude focused life instead of telling stories about men and events that impacted the author's life.  

Don't Be a Cicada Christian!

Remember that old movie Poltergeist? Man, that was scary to watch as a nine-year-old boy who still wore Spiderman pajamas to bed. If you've ever seen that old horror movie you will remember the character's house was built over a sacred graveyard. This caused a huge territorial dispute. In the end, I'm glad the humans won.

As I quickly discovered last week, my house seems to fall into the same predicament, except I'm not battling ghosts and unsettled spirits but millions of tiny, ugly, and annoying creatures called cicadas. My house seems to have been built on an ancient cicada-harvesting plot, while my neighbors' houses go cicadaless. 

I'm now having dreams at night of my neighbors sitting in their porch swings sipping lemonade as I'm shoveling cicadas off my sidewalk. In these dreams my wife is Googling a recipe for home made cicada pesticide while my children are in the backyard making cicada shell necklaces! Our house is infested with this every-thirteenth-year curse. 

Yesterday, as I was taking out the trash, the nasty crunching noise I made as I walked through our cicada crop made me think about us Christians. It was an odd thing to realize the resemblance between these creatures and some Christians. May I share with you four similarities? I always like to ask (unlike the cicadas).

1.    Cicadas make a lot of noise but I never see them do anything. Don't be a Christian that's all talk and no action. All these cicadas seem to do is sit. Don’t be a Christian that comes to church just to sit. Be an active Christian.

2.    Cicadas come out of the World's dirt, enjoy the sunshine, and go right back into the dirt for 13 more years. Don't come out of a life of sin and then dig yourself back into your old lifestyle. Remember, you are a NEW creation. The old lifestyle of enjoying sin has passed. 

3.    Cicadas shed their skin.  Don't put on the moral coat of a Christian on Sunday only to shed it off Monday through Saturday.  

4.    Cicadas take over your place without asking. How rude! Some of the bossiest people I know are professing Christians. Don't have the "I'm right, your wrong, so I can do whatever I like" mentality that many Christians carry around today.

Let us all put to good use these lessons taught from our infesting friends. Well, I must get back to work. Now, where did I put that shovel?  

Book Review: Desiring God by John Piper

Although Desiring God (by John Piper) has been in circulation for years, today it is still greatly consumed by many. Therefore, I was excited to receive (provided to me by Multnomah Waterbrook Press for review) this Revised Edition which also includes a Study Guide! This study guide is a great tool for those desiring to easily use this book as a discipleship training class or a small group study.

Now, I must confess: the central idea of this work is an amazing concept to grasp.  At first glance the idea of the words Christian and Hedonist used to describe a sold-out Christian was rather awkward.  By very definition, the concept of Hedonism is for one's pursuit of pleasure as a matter of ethical principle.  In turn, the common idea and concept of a Christian is for one's pursuit of God as a matter of ethical principle. Therefore, my curiosity was slapped by this idea of a Christian Hedonist. 

As you will find in this scripture-soaked book, God's happiness and pleasure for His glory is at the heart of a Christian Hedonist and is the absolute focus and purpose of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

This book will answer many great questions, such as:

1.What makes God happy?

2.How should Christians come to God with our conversations, our worship, and our love?

3.How can I make God happy in my marriage and my finances?

If you've ever wanted to grasp a solid and understandable answer to these questions and more, then this is the one book you must read. Pick up your copy today and enjoy the pleasures of becoming a Christian Hedonist!

Book Review: The Walk by Shaun Alexander

I was excited, to say the least, upon receiving my early copy of Shaun Alexander’s The Walk. While I’m not a huge sports fan (please don’t walk away), having met Shaun at our church I was intrigued enough through our casual conversation to read his book. WaterBrookMultnomah quickly shipped this small 228 page book and so, I dug in.

The Walk starts off with a grueling football scene, which is expected but takes a rather awkward turn in the story. In this opening scene we find Alexander and some teammates laying hands on an injured player. Through prayer and the laying on of hands this man was miraculously healed.

While the reader will quickly find out the opening scene is only a dream, the overall flow and focus of The Walk seems to be on healing by prayer and laying on of hands. I counted five other instances through my reading of The Walk demonstrating a healing through prayer and/or touch.

While there are many who believe in such supernatural powers being bestowed on the modern-day church and it’s believers, those who believe the healing gifts are no longer necessary in today’s time may have an urgency to place this book in the fantasy category of their mind.

As an example, the story Alexander shares with the reader beginning on page 158 is a very dramatic story of a woman resurrecting her dead husband and then brining him to the conference she was attending. While I am not against hearing stories of modern-day miracles, I had a different expectation of The Walk. I was anticipating a book geared toward all male Christians struggling to walk through his culture according to God’s will.  Instead, all I could concentrate on was looking for the next miracle scene in The Walk. 

I have rated this read as a 2.5 out of 5 stars.